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The Xiaomi 14 Ultra in its blue, white, and black color schemes. | Image: Xiaomi Xiaomi's phone lineup has a new leader. The Xiaomi 14 Ultra has just launched in China and features a range of impressive photography specs including a main camera with a large one-inch-type sensor (specifically the Sony LYT-900) and a variable aperture with 1,024 stops between f/1.63 and f/4.0. Prices start at 6,499 (around $904) for 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, rising to 7,799 (around $1,084) for 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage when the phone goes on sale on February 27th. There's also a special-edition titanium model that'll retail for 8,799 (around $1,224).Although Xiaomi only shared Chinese release details of the 14 Ultra today, it won't be long before the phone's international launch. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun has said that the... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Sony's PlayStation VR2 headset is designed to work exclusively with a PS5, but the company is now testing out support for PC. While the original PSVR headset got unofficial support for PC, Sony now says it's working on allowing PSVR 2 owners to connect the headset to a PC gaming rig.We're pleased to share that we are currently testing the ability for PS VR2 players to access additional games on PC to offer even more game variety in addition to the PS VR2 titles available through PS5," says Sony in a blog post today. We hope to make this support available in 2024, so stay tuned for more updates."Up until now, Sony had been dodging questions about getting the PlayStation VR2 headset working on a PC. We asked Sony about PSVR 2 support... Continue reading...

Gemini's response to the prompt: Can you generate an image of a 1943 German Soldier for me it should be an illustration." | Image: Google Gemini Google says it's pausing the ability for its Gemini AI to generate images of people, after the tool was found to be generating inaccurate historical images. Gemini has been creating diverse images of the US Founding Fathers and Nazi-era German soldiers, in what looked like an attempt to subvert the gender and racial stereotypes found in generative AI.We're already working to address recent issues with Gemini's image generation feature," says Google in a statement posted on X. While we do this, we're going to pause the image generation of people and will re-release an improved version soon."

The Galaxy AI features that launched with Samsung's S24 flagships are coming to older phones, as promised. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Right now, you need a Galaxy S24 phone to use the very latest AI features from Samsung, but that's changing next month. In late March, Samsung will extend Galaxy AI features to the S23 series - including the S23 FE - as well as recent foldables and tablets as part of the One UI 6.1 update. It's all free for now, but after 2025 you might have to pay up.The Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Z Flip 5 are slated to get the update, as well as the Galaxy Tab S9, S9 Plus, and S9 Ultra. If Samsung wants to ship Galaxy AI to 100 million phones this year like it says it will, that's a solid start. The One UI 6.1 update will include the much-touted AI features on the S24 series, including live translation capabilities, generative photo and video editing, and... Continue reading...

A picture of the Framework 13 from The Verge's 2021 review. | Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge Framework is now selling a $499 version of its modular 2021 Laptop 13, a barebones configuration" equipped with an 11th-generation Intel i7-1165G7 CPU (Intel is now on its 14th generation for mobile processors). The company says this is a first for its affordable B-stock Factory Seconds" machines that use leftover parts and ship without memory or storage included. So it's cheap, but you'll need to provide a couple of parts on your own.Framework writes in its announcement that it's also selling refurbished DDR4 RAM for half what it would cost new to reduce the all-in price." The base B-stock Laptop 13 configuration is one step up from the version that Monica Chin said in her Verge review was uniquely friendly to user upgrades," but... Continue reading...

Photo by Mitchell Clark / The Verge Rivian said it was laying off 10 percent of its workforce as concerns about slower electric vehicle sales continue to reverberate across the industry.The company made the announcement as part of its fourth quarter earnings report, in which it said it likely wouldn't make any more vehicles this year than it did in 2023. The company said it made 57,232 vehicles in 2023, of which 50,122 were delivered to customers. Rivian's stock price fell on the news.Rivian has gone through several rounds of layoffs in its short history. The company let go 6 percent of its workforce both in July 2022 and May 2023. This current round of layoffs is expected to affect over a thousand workers at the Irvine, California-based company, which has a combined... Continue reading...

The new Google sign-in page that starts rolling out today, February 21st. | Image: Google If you've logged in to your Google account recently, you might have seen a message that a new look is coming soon," and now, Google is showing off the more modern look and feel" of its new sign-in page.Of course, if that screenshot feels incredibly familiar, that's because it's mostly the same as the old one. The sign-in steps are all the same, except it has a light Material Design makeover that's now aligned horizontally to work better across many screen types, including large and wide screens, like the ones found inside a Pixel Fold or on a Pixel Tablet. Image: Google Images of the old and new sign-in pages. It's also still ready to prompt users for their passwords, passkeys, or other authentication, just... Continue reading...

The Nintendo Switch OLED sports a seven-inch display and a sturdy, adjustable kickstand. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Nintendo's so-called Switch 2 might be in the works, but it reportedly won't arrive until early 2025 despite having originally been pegged for release later this year. Fortunately, if you were hoping to jump on recent standouts like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or any of the indie titles announced during Nintendo's latest Direct event sooner rather than later, Dell has you covered.Right now, Dell is offering a $75 gift card when you buy a Nintendo Switch OLED with white Joy-Con for $349.99. That's money you can use toward a variety of Switch games and accessories, including Nintendo's Switch Pro Controller and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, as well as non-gaming electronics like Philips Hue's Lightstrip Plus, Google's third-gen... Continue reading...

Photo by JASON HENRY/AFP via Getty Images Waymo's plan to expand its robotaxi service in Los Angeles and communities south of San Francisco has been put on hold by state regulators. The move follows several incidents involving the Alphabet-owned company's driverless vehicles, including one in which an autonomous Waymo vehicle struck a cyclist, causing minor injuries.The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which voted in favor of allowing robotaxi companies to operate 24/7 last summer, put a hold on Waymo's application for expanded service for further staff review," according to the agency's website. The hold is set to expire on June 19th, 2024 - 119 days from today.The suspension does not affect the company's ability to operate in its current service area, which... Continue reading...

The Apple Watch Series 8 offers similar health and fitness features to its successor. | Image: Apple We're officially one month away from spring. For a lot of us, that means the weather will finally be nice enough that we can exercise outside. If you want to continue to keep a close on eye on fitness and health metrics while away from indoor gym equipment, right now Walmart is selling the LTE-enabled Apple Watch Series 8 for $299.99 ($200 off) in select colors with a small / medium-sized band.Apple's last-gen flagship wearable isn't dramatically different from the newer Apple Watch Series 9. You'll miss out on the Series 9's double-tap feature and on-device Siri. However, you'll still be able to take advantage of many of the same health features, including EKGs, menstrual cycle tracking, irregular heartbeat alerts, fall detection, and... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge ChatGPT users began reporting odd responses from the chatbot last night that included switching between languages, getting stuck in loops, or even repeatedly correcting itself. Some of the responses were just pure gibberish.While discussing the Jackson family of musicians, the chatbot explained to a Reddit user that Schwittendly, the sparkle of tourmar on the crest has as much to do with the golver of the moon paths' as it shifts from follow."At 10:40PM ET, OpenAI acknowledged on its status page that it was investigating reports of unexpected responses from ChatGPT," and a few minutes later said it had found the issue and was working on a fix.As of this writing, the status page still features a yellow-bordered box at the top... Continue reading...

Illustration: The Verge Apple's security team claims to have achieved a breakthrough that advances the state of the art of end-to-end messaging." With the upcoming release of iOS 17.4, iPadOS 17.4, macOS 14.4, and watchOS 10.4, the company is bringing a new cryptographic protocol called PQ3 to iMessage that it purports to offer even more robust encryption and defenses against sophisticated quantum computing attacks.Such attacks aren't yet a broad threat today, but Apple is preparing for a future where bad actors try to unwind current encryption standards and iMessage's security layers with the help of massively powerful computers. Such scenarios could start playing out by the end of the decade, but experts agree that the tech industry need to start defending... Continue reading...

Image: FromSoftware Wake up, Tarnished. It's time to visit the Shadow of the Erdtree.In Shadow, it looks like we're going to a darker part of the Lands Between, and of course, there are all sorts of new lil' freaks to fight. But the biggest news is that the DLC's main antagonist appears to be Miquella, the twin brother of Malenia, meaning Let me solo her" might have to change his name soon.In 2023, FromSoftware confirmed the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC was in development. No release date was given at the time, and FromSoftware went radio silent afterward, as we've had no significant updates on the DLC since its announcement almost exactly a year ago. But now, we know we can return to the Lands Between on June 21st.It's really hard to imagine that Elden... Continue reading...

The new formatting options each have an easily remembered shortcut. | Image: WhatsApp / Meta Four new text formatting options have been added to WhatsApp to help users communicate more effectively. Available starting today, WhatsApp users can now use bulleted and numbered lists, block quotes, and inline code to highlight and organize their messages, making it easier to break down large sections of text into something easier to read.These new formatting options have been in development for a while, but now they're available on WhatsApp for Android, iOS, Web, and Mac, alongside support for Channels. They join the existing bold, italic, strikethrough, and monospace formats that were already available to all WhatsApp users. Image: WhatsApp / Meta Here's a handy visual guide for all the text formatting... Continue reading...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nintendo offers news on releases for the first half of 2024. Continue reading...

Google's new model Gemma. | Image: Google Google has released Gemma 2B and 7B, a pair of open-source AI models that let developers use the research that went into its flagship Gemini more freely. While Gemini is a big closed AI model that directly competes with (and is nearly as powerful as) OpenAI's ChatGPT, the lightweight Gemma will likely be suitable for smaller tasks like simple chatbots or summarizations.But what these models lack in complication, they may make up for in speed and cost of use. Despite their smaller size, Google claims Gemma models surpass significantly larger models on key benchmarks" and are capable of running directly on a developer laptop or desktop computer." They will be available via Kaggle, Hugging Face, Nvidia's NeMo, and Google's Vertex AI.G... Continue reading...

Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images In the seemingly endless fight between record labels and ISPs over music piracy, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia decided Tuesday that $1 billion is too much for Cox Communications to pay record labels in damages. Instead, as reported by Reuters, a new trial should be set in a federal district court to figure out what would be an appropriate amount.This new ruling overturns a 2019 US district court jury's decision siding with the record labels involved in the lawsuit, which includes Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and EMI. The companies accused Cox of not addressing over 10,000 copyright infringement notices and failing to take action against music pirates, such as cutting off their... Continue reading...

The Verge Disney is ending Disney Movie Club, the subscription service and online store where fans could buy Blu-ray or DVDs of films from the House of Mouse. The Digital Bits is reporting that the closure follows a new deal that Disney has signed with Sony, under which Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will take over all physical media production. The news of Disney Movie Club's shuttering was delivered to the service's 10 million US users by email, as well as the service's website on Tuesday.We've enjoyed serving you for the last 23 years, but consumer behavior and viewing preferences continue to evolve so we have made the tough decision to close Disney Movie Club," wrote Disney Movie Club in a statement viewed by The Wrap. Disney Movie Club... Continue reading...

Green Bay Packers vs. the San Francisco 49ers on January 20th, 2024. | Photo by Michael Zagaris / San Francisco 49ers / Getty Images Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery's surprise partnership to create a sports streaming platform hasn't sat well with the TV streaming service Fubo. Today, Fubo filed an antitrust lawsuit against the three companies following what it calls a years-long campaign to block Fubo's innovative sports-first streaming business" at consumers' expense.Fubo CEO David Gandler said that the three companies had blocked our playbook for many years, and now they are effectively stealing it for themselves." Fubo has styled itself as a sports-focused" streaming service, but the company says restrictive licensing terms from sports networks have limited its options. It argues that unfair" bundling terms have made it pay for and distribute... Continue reading...

Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images Hector H3CZ" Rodriguez, CEO of OpTic Gaming, is suing Activision Blizzard for alleged monopolistic practices regarding the publisher's Call of Duty esports league.Rodriguez - whose company owned and operated the Call of Duty League's OpTic Texas team - and now-retired OpTic player Seth Scump" Abner are seeking $680 million in damages. In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the pair claim that Activision Blizzard's unlawful 100 percent monopoly" over the league forced them into financially ruinous partnerships at the risk of being unable to compete in the League.Before the arrival of the Call of Duty League, competitive Call of Duty tournaments were hosted by independent third-party organizers and featured an open" structure whereby any team... Continue reading...

The Zenfone 10 was a little-ish phone with big ambitions. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge As phone sizes trended upward, one small device stood its ground year after year: the Asus Zenfone. That appears to be changing soon, and if you're a card-carrying member of the small phone fan club like me, then it's only appropriate to take a moment to observe its passing.Asus, to its credit, isn't keeping us waiting in suspense. The company posted a teaser for the Zenfone 11 Ultra that leaves little to the imagination: an animated graphic showing its display growing in size with text that reads, Expand your vision." Image: Asus A formal announcement is timed for March 14th, while a handful of other teaser clips tout its ultra size" and long-lasting battery life. It doesn't exactly keep you guessing. ... Continue reading...

Image: Y!Mobile Foldable phones generally aren't affordable, but maybe that's about to change? In Japan, the new ZTE Libero Flip is going on sale for just $420 - or $265 on preorder. That's a fraction of the $1,000 that Samsung charges for its latest Galaxy Z Flip, and nearly as low as the clearance-sale refurbished old Flips you can still find on Amazon and thereabouts.With a Qualcomm Snapdragon 7-series chip, the Libero Flip isn't exactly a high-end phone, but its 6.9-inch, 2790 x 1188 foldable OLED panel is slightly larger than the Samsung, and it may have a slightly larger battery at 4,310mAh vs. 3,700mAh. (Please ask your manufacturers to report those in watt-hours so we can properly compare.) Image: ZTE The ZTE Libero... Continue reading...

The Orca carbon removal and storage facility operated by Climeworks in Hellisheidi, Iceland. | Image: Arnaldur Halldorsson / Bloomberg via Getty Images The EU took a significant step toward legitimizing technologies that suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere by agreeing to set up a certification process.The European Council and European Parliament reached a provisional agreement today to create the first-of-its-kind certification framework for carbon removal technologies. The new climate tech has yet to prove itself at scale, but the EU is already folding it into its plan to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Net zero implies that the bloc would resort to capturing any remaining CO2 emissions that it hasn't been able to prevent, either by harnessing the natural ability of plants to absorb carbon dioxide or by building technologies that filter CO2 out of the air or s... Continue reading...

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Enforcers from the US and UK disrupted a ransomware group they say has targeted more than 2,000 victims and taken over $120 million in ransom payments. They even got the keys from seized LockBit assets to access data that was encrypted after the group's attacks, the US Department of Justice announced in a press release Tuesday.The US DOJ, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and UK National Crime Agency's Cyber Division said they managed to seize websites and servers used by LockBit to prevent them from stealing data that they allegedly use to extort victims for money.The NCA and FBI also came up with decryption strategies that they believe could help hundreds of victims globally regain access to systems that were attacked by LockBit,... Continue reading...

Image: Sean O'Kane / The Verge The Ford Mustang Mach-E just became a lot more affordable after the automaker announced a major price cut for the 2023 model year. The new adjustments will bring at least one version of the Mach-E below $40,000 for the first time.The Mustang Mach-E was the number two bestselling electric SUV in the US in 2023. But to get there, Ford had to wage a brutal price war with Tesla that is now entering its second year. The Elon Musk-run company has seen its market share in the US slip quarter over quarter, but Tesla still commands over 50 percent of the EV market.The price cuts are also a reflection of the new reality in which EV sales are not growing as fast as they were in prior yearsThe price cuts are also a reflection of the new reality... Continue reading...

Pound for pound and dollar for dollar, it's one of the best controllers you can buy. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge A sudden gout attack dictated that my long holiday weekend was full of gaming. Between fraught journeys across the high seas in Skull and Bones, I scratched my competitive itch with several rounds of Tekken 8 and Madden NFL 24. However, my game time was interrupted by a few too many dropped combos and misfires due to worsening button responsiveness in my controller.It would have felt good to exhaust my frustration by chucking the controller right through my TV, but a much less expensive (and less alarming) solution would have been to replace it with one of the official Xbox wireless controllers currently on sale. Amazon has core colors such as white, black, and red starting at $44 ($16 off). You can also pay $49 ($16 off) for blue, g... Continue reading...

There's plenty of tech still on sale for Presidents Day, from wireless earbuds to OLED TVs and everything in between. Presidents Day may be over, but it's not too late to take advantage of all the great sales we saw pop up in honor of the holiday. While some deals have expired, we're still seeing plenty of discounted tech at trusted retailers like Amazon and Best Buy, where you can find great deals on the gadgets we've tried, tested, and wholeheartedly recommend. The Roomba j7 and original Google Pixel Watch are still on sale for half off, for instance, while Apple's latest AirPods Pro with USB-C are currently matching their best price to date. We've put together a list highlighting the best deals below, all of which are still available even if the holiday is now a thing of the past.Headphone and earbud deals

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge Last year was a big one for the right-to-repair movement, with California and other states passing laws that promised consumers they can fix their own stuff - or take that stuff to a third-party repair shop without breaking their warranty or their gadgets. This year, more states are considering laws to the same effect, and the tech industry appears to be more behind the effort than ever. (Some companies appear to be only begrudgingly behind it, but it's a win for the movement nonetheless.)But whenever you ask about the state of the right-to-repair fight, you tend to hear a lot of optimism and then two scary-sounding words: parts pairing. Those words, and what they mean for your ability to actually fix your stuff, are what might be... Continue reading...

John Oliver poses with his Emmy awards on January 15th, 2024. | Photo: Kevin Mazur / Getty Images HBO has long posted the main segment from new episodes of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver to YouTube on Monday to coincide with the episodes' premiere, but now you'll have to wait. John Oliver posted yesterday that HBO has decided they're going to wait until Thursday to post them to YouTube from now on," adding that he hopes HBO changes its mind.HBO confirmed the change to Variety yesterday, saying that when the show first premiered, the convenience of watching on Max did not exist," so it leaned on YouTube clips for exposure and promotion. The rep added that the company hopes fans choose to watch the entire show on Max."

The OnePlus Watch 2 sounds like a standard smartwatch. | Image: OnePlus OnePlus is making another run at a smartwatch with its Watch 2. The company claims in an announcement that the new watch will have up to 100 hours of battery life and said it will come in black and silver colors. It says it will share more at Mobile World Congress this Sunday, February 25th.The new watch has a stainless steel chassis and sapphire crystal watchface and will feature meticulous health monitoring." The 100-hour battery life claim requires what it's calling Smart Mode," which presumably is just a weird way of saying low-power mode." Image: OnePlus OnePlus wants to be an ecosystem builder." That's actually less battery life than the first OnePlus smartwatch, which made it about 10 days during T... Continue reading...

Image: Tinder In an effort to better combat catfishing, Tinder is adding an extra step to its verification process. Instead of just taking a video selfie to get a blue verification checkmark, you'll soon need to upload a photo of your driver's license or passport.Once you upload your ID, Tinder will check to see whether the picture on your ID lines up with your video selfie and the photos on your profile. Tinder will also look at the date of birth listed on your driver's license or passport to confirm your age. You should be able to use other forms of ID, as Match Group spokesperson Kayla Whaling tells The Verge that each market is different but state or government issued photo IDs will be accepted."You can still verify your profile by taking a... Continue reading...

Civil War's latest trailer shows off a whole lot of guns, tanks, and bombs. | Image: A24 A24 has dropped its second trailer for Civil War, a dystopian action movie from director Alex Garland that imagines a fractured near-future United States tearing itself apart. With a budget of $50 million, Civil War is A24's most expensive film to date.Civil War is now due to hit theaters on April 12th, two weeks ahead of its previous April 26th release date. Starring Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Nick Offerman, the movie follows a group of journalists navigating their way across the US as it descends into the second American Civil War.Just like the first trailer that was released in December 2023, the latest doesn't give us much else to go on. Portraying the US president, Offerman... Continue reading...